Weekly Picks and Misc. for March 9

Last week, Pi Recordings ran a sale on some back-catalog titles, albums by Rudresh Mahanthappa, Dan Weiss, and Hafez Modirzadeh. It’s been a good excuse to talk about and listen to Modirzadeh all week, a brilliant, beautiful musician.

• Hafez Modirzadeh - Post-Chromodal Out! A must-own, belongs in the jazz canon right next to its near-namesake. Modirzadeh leads a quintet with Amir ElSaffar, Vijay Iyer, Ken Filiano, and Royal Hartigan (a regular collaborator).

• Bobby Bradford & Hafez Modirzadeh - Live at The Blue Whale One of three quartet albums released by Bradford and Modirzadeh on NoBusiness. This one, recorded at the recently shuttered Blue Whale in Los Angeles features Roberto Miguel Miranda and Vijay Anderson.

• Nathaniel Mackey with Hafez Modirzadeh and Royal Hartigan - STRICK: Song of the Andoumboulou: 16-25 Text/music performance by the great chronicler of jazz in prose and poetry, augmented by Modirzadeh and Hartigan. Out of print but available to stream at the PennSound link above.

• Wire playlist: Alexander Hawkins on Hafez Modirzadeh A wonderful walk through Modirzadeh’s sound world. Features highlights from most of the Pi albums, plus some really nice insight into the many influences, references, and associations spurred on by Modirzadeh’s music.

• Taylor Nasim Stone - Iranian Diaspora Spotlight: SF State’s Professor Hafez Modirzadeh on Amplifying the Struggle for Freedom through Music This recent blog post ran on the SF State website, a precursor to an upcoming March 16 performance, “Nava-E Mardom: Norooz Liberation Music for Iran & Beyond.” For anyone in the Bay Area, I can’t imagine a better way to spend next Thursday night.